WASHINGTON, DC \u2014 The Trump administration has ordered a Michigan drinking water expert who played a pivotal role in exposing the Flint water crisis to \u201ccease all work\u201d on a federal advisory council because she criticized the government.<\/p>\n
Elin Warn Betanzo, a former federal drinking water engineer and private consultant based in Detroit, said she was barred from regular participation in a Monday, July 28 meeting of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council<\/a> while the agency conducts an investigation into her \u201cpotential signature on a petition.\u201d <\/p>\n Betanzo, who has served four years on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency council, said she was notified July 3 that she was under investigation but has received no further information about that process scope, timeline or evidence.<\/p>\n Betanzo was among many who signed a \u201cStand Up For Science<\/a>\u201d petition criticizing the agency, whom signers say has abandoned its mission to protect human health and the environment. The EPA put employees who signed the petition on leave this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n She called her removal a \u201cdangerous precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis action is chilling \u2014 not only because it removes my voice from the conversation but because it sends a clear message to others: speak out, and you may be silenced,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cSilencing a member of this council \u2014 without explanation or due process \u2014 undermines the credibility of the advisory process and betrays the values of transparency, inclusion, and public accountability that EPA claims to uphold,\u201d Betanzo said \u201cThis is a dangerous precedent and I urge EPA to immediately restore my ability to participate in the work of NDWAC and publicly clarify the basis and status of this investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement Thursday, the EPA press office said it placed 160 employees on administrative leave because they signed a letter \u201cthat contains information that misleads the public about agency business\u201d while \u201cusing their officials titles and positions.\u201d<\/p>\n The EPA \u201chas a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats using their agency position and title to unlawfully undermine, sabotage, and undercut the will of the American public that was clearly expressed at the ballot box last November,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The EPA statement was a repeat of past statements made to other news outlets. The agency did not answer questions about what rule or policy justified the investigation into Betanzo. \u201cEPA does not comment on individual personnel matters,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Betanzo, a private consultant who owns the Safe Water Engineering<\/a> firm in Detroit, said she last drew a government salary in 2008. As a council member, she is classified as a \u201cspecial government employee\u201d and paid hourly on an intermittent basis for council meetings and workgroups. She said she did not sign the petition while on council time or using EPA resources.<\/p>\n Betanzo played a pivotal role in helping expose two drinking water crises in Michigan, both involving lead water service lines. She identified early on the risk posed by the city of Flint switching to the Flint River as drinking source water without proper corrosion control in 2015 and urged her childhood friend, Mona Hanna-Attisha, to test the blood of local children.<\/p>\n In Benton Harbor, Betanzo was as technical advisor to community advocates who petitioned the EPA in 2021 for federal intervention following several years of elevated lead levels, triggering a bottled water advisory and eventual city-wide lead line replacement.<\/p>\n She joined the NDWAC in 2021 and was reappointed last year. She called her removal is a \u201cpolitical move\u201d and said she feels targeted as a voice for consumers. \u201cI never signed away (First Amendments) rights when I joined the council,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Betanzo called it ironic that her signature on a petition criticizing the government resulted in her removal while other council members affiliated with trade associations such as the American Water Works Association that are suing the EPA to challenge the validity of drinking water rules were allowed full participation.<\/p>\n The 15-member council is chaired by Steven Elmore, drinking water program manager for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. It meets once or twice a year. It\u2019s role under the Safe Drinking Water Act is to give EPA diverse stakeholder input in the development of drinking water regulations.<\/p>\n Council members this week discussed the administration\u2019s proposal to partly rescind enforceable national standards<\/a> finalized in 2024 which severely limit the amount of toxic PFAS chemicals that water utilities can pass along in finished drinking water. <\/p>\n Betanzo\u2019s removal follows other recent controversy around the role of science at EPA. The agency is eliminating its Office of Research and Development as part of a workforce reduction under administrator Lee Zeldin that is cutting agency staff by more than 3,700 employees<\/a>. The office has long provided scientific research and analysis which has underpinned the agency\u2019s public health and environmental regulations. <\/p>\n The EPA workforce reductions follow a Supreme Court ruling<\/a> last week that paved the way for President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> plans to downsize the federal workforce.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, DC \u2014 The Trump administration has ordered a Michigan drinking water expert who played a pivotal role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[40245,21715,192,4233,1303,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-52550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-benton-harbor","9":"tag-bottled-water","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-lead","12":"tag-michigan","13":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}